Hunx & His Punx

HUNX AND HIS PUNX have returned with Street Punk—a new album filled with the catchiest and most hateful punk songs heard in eons. Street Punk is an unrelenting tour de force, echoing early 80s hardcore, 90s grrl sounds, Darby Crash on helium, and the female answer to The Misfits.

After members dropping like flies and moving around the country, Hunx and His Punx is now led by Seth Bogart and Shannon Shaw, who split songwriting and vocal duties. In the years since their last album, 2011’s Too Young To Be in Love, Seth recorded a solo album called Hairdresser Blues (2012) and started a homemade TV Show called Hollywood Nailz, while Shannon released Dreams In The Rat House (2013) with her other band Shannon and the Clams. Somehow during all of this Seth and Shannon managed to secretly meet in Los Angeles and Oakland to gob out Street Punk.

Recorded in just a couple days by Facundo Bermudez (who has produced albums by Mika Miko and No Age), Street Punk includes a cover of the Beastie Boys' early hardcore anthem “Egg Raid on Mojo" and songs about bad skin, teen angst, social wimpery, trash, isolation, schizophrenia, peroxided delusion, rat parties and vengeance.

Cherry Glazerr

Any discussion of Cherry Glazerr is going to have a few obvious bullet points. First and foremost, the band is astonishingly young, with frontwoman/guitarist Clementine Creevy barely old enough to vote and bassist Sean Redman just barely above the drinking age. They are now rounded out by new members Sasami Ashworth on keyboard and guitar and Tabor Allen on drums. And then there's the fact that the band's debut cassette was released by California's current kings of DIY power pop and garage rock, Burger Records. So even if you know nothing else about the LA-based band, you know that they're young and that they're a part of the thriving underground community of stripped-down jubilant rock n' roll. But if you're envisioning a bunch of awkward, hyperactive kids bouncing around in their parent's basement, consider the fact that the band has been championed and photographed by French fashion designer Hedi Slimane of Saint Laurent Paris. Slimane even commissioned the band to score his fall/winter 2014 Paris show. The result was "Had Ten Dollaz", a song that captures Cherry Glazerr's knack for dualities: sultry and virulent, sophisticated and casual, laid back and bombastic, playful and deliberate. Suicide Squeeze Records later paired "Had Ten Dollaz" with the equally intoxicating b-side "Nurse Ratched" as a limited edition 7” released in the spring of 2015. With a fleshed-out lineup, the band is currently at work on their follow up LP to Haxel Princess.

Criminal Hygiene

Criminal Hygiene (CRMNL HYGNE) was formed in 2011 over a couple of really good burgers at Olympian Family Restaurant in South Central Los Angeles. Eat lunch there and you might start a band too, its a fucking great establishment. They have Cherry Coke on tap and they are very generous with their Thousand Island dressing, which goes good with anything on the menu. A good vegetarian option is the Avocado Sandwich with fries, a Cherry Coke and a couple things of Thousand Island. Their most famous dish however is the 1/2 Chicken Plate. I had this once with my good friend Grady, we each ordered one to go and ate it on our porch. It was an amazing meal, one of the best ever had by anyone. We each had 2 things of Thousand Island and a Cherry Coke along with it. The description of the plate might sound kind of odd, but it's one of those things that makes sense once you experience it, like mini golf. The base is a nice romaine salad with tomatoes. Right on top is the chicken... one leg and one breast. To the side is a chunk of buttered garlic bread and behind that is a handful of fries. All this is served with a side of salsa and Thousand Island....mmmm. I've also heard amazing things about the various types of face-sized burgers... avocado, avocado w/bacon etc.

Upset

For the past few years, Ali Koehler has been best known as the drummer of the pop group Best Coast and the noisy girl punk trio Vivian Girls. After her departure from Best Coast, Koehler decided to step up from behind the kit to front a band of her own, embracing her melodic punk-spirited songwriting impulses with Upset. Joined by Patty Schemel (of Hole) on drums and Jennifer Prince on lead guitar and vocals, Upsetwill release its massively hooky debut record, She’s Gone, this fall.

With 12 songs in just under 30 minutes, it’s a pop-punk album that immediately sounds classic, full of unshakeable hooks and the sincerest of shouts. It is fitting that She’s Gone will see a release with Don Giovanni Records; the record could easily fit in the record collections of Ergs or Lemuria fans. She’s Gone was recorded primarily at Koehler’s house in April of 2013 by Kyle Gilbride of Swearin’.

As a songwriter, Koehler draws on the snarky angst and punk simplicity of her previous bands, with a delivery that masks angry and cheeky lyrics with a sweet-sung and wide-eyed infliction. She’s Gone opens with “Back To School,” conveying that sense of first-day anxieties and uncertainty that comes with a return to an old routine. “First day back’s a heart attack,” Koehler sings. It’s an intro to the sort of personal and relatable lyrics she sings throughout, full of anxious introspection. “Game Over” (written and sung by Jenn Prince) is bored and angsty, channeling distant vox and 90s-indebted noise-pop guitars; “Never Wanna” is an urgent and impatient earworm. “I just don’t know what to do / I can’t stop thinking of you,” Koehler sings.

“Queen Frosteen” uses childlike, upbeat rhymes and a sticky chorus to set up her indictment of a friendship gone wrong. “When she sets the scene / it’s a sugarcoated fantasy,” she sings, in a way that’s so overly sugar-sweet, it almost sounds sarcastic. “Queen Frosteen, my enemy / she’s everything and I’m nobody / Queen Frosteen, my enemy.” The closing track sounds similarly burned and pissed about it. “This was a lesson learned / this is goodbye,” the band sings, girl-gang style. “That’s not what friends are for.”

She’s Gone has moments of self-doubt and resonant angst (“I can’t remember feeling worse than this,” Koehler sings on “Oxfords and Wingtips”) but it has a sense of humor about it as well; “About Me” even starts with a giggle. It’s a sort of record that’s not afraid to have sincere open-book, downer moments, but doesn’t take itself too seriously.